1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a light emitting device that is applicable to display devices, illumination devices, displays, backlight sources of liquid crystal displays, light sources for vehicles and the like, and to a method for manufacturing the same. In particular, the present invention relates to a high-brightness light emitting device used for light sources of vehicles, and a method for manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, light emitting devices with a light emitting element such as light emitting diode have been getting popular as light sources of vehicle lamps. As disclosed in WO 2010/044240 A, an example of such light emitting devices for vehicle lamp units includes a phosphor-containing wavelength converting member on its light emitting element. In order to obtain high brightness, a metal film is formed on a part of the surface of the wavelength converting member to reduce the light emitting area and to increase the amount of light per unit area. The reduced light emitting area is also advantageous in terms of reducing the size of the vehicle lamp.
Further, in a light emitting device disclosed in JP 2012-99544 A, a wavelength converting member containing a phosphor is placed on a light emitting element that is face-down mounted on a substrate, wherein a reflection resin is provided around the circumferences of the light emitting element and the wavelength converting member to cover the side faces of the light emitting element and wavelength converting member. With the reflection resin, the light emitted from the light emitting element and wavelength converting member emits from a light emitting face that is not covered with the reflector resin. The reflector resin reflects the light emitted from the side faces of the light emitting element and wavelength converting member to turn the light toward the light emitting face, thus allowing for high brightness of the light emitting device.
However, if such a conventional light device is incorporated in a vehicle lamp, light emitted from the light emitting device is reflected on the surfaces of a reflector provided around the light emitting device, peripheral light reflective members and the like, and the reflected light is further reflected on the surface of the wavelength converting member of the light emitting device at the part not facing the light emitting face. The resulting reflected light mixes with the light from the light emitting face, and is eventually emitted as a part of the light from the light emitting device. This changes the luminous intensity distribution of the light emitting device when it is incorporated in a vehicle lamp. As a result, there has been a problem of difficulty in obtaining desired luminous intensity distribution of an assembled vehicle lamp.
Furthermore, the light is apparently emitted from not only the intended light emitting face but also from the surrounding part of the defined light emitting face. Since this degrades the visibility of the light emitting face (makes the outline unclear) although the light emitting face is narrowed down, there has been another problem of difficulty in sufficiently reducing the light emitting area.